Not yet out of the woods...

19-25 September 2018

The poor bus, being towed :(

We had hoped and expected to be down in Bordeaux by now, with a few days grape-picking under our belt, but circumstances have kept us here in Normandy and we’ve found it’s not the sort of place where anything gets done in a hurry!

When I last posted we were stationed at a garage in Pont L-Eveque, waiting to hear if they could look at the bus on Monday (a week ago). The weekend passed enjoyably enough, the weather was great - we visited the town a few times, took Nina for some nice walks, discovered the local tip was just around the corner and got rid of some surplus bits and bobs we decided we didn’t need plus an accumulation of rubbish (amazing how it builds up in a small space!).

Exploring The Normandy Coast

Monday came and the RAC informed us the garage couldn’t look at the bus, not sure why, maybe because it’s automatic, or perhaps they were just too busy, but another garage 93 km away could have a look… on Tuesday! So, Tuesday came, the new recovery man arrived, only to declare our bus was too big to tow with his vehicle and within seconds he hot-footed out of there, without us. The garage we were at agreed to tow us there, after lunch (everything stops in France for two hours from 12 until 2pm). At 2pm thus followed a scene not dissimilar to John Cleese attacking his broken down mini in Fawlty Towers; the driver, the same one who had recovered us initially, was assigned to get us to the other garage. The guy had worked all weekend, as we had seen him coming and going with other breakdown vehicles, and was probably totally knackered;  with no assistance, had to manoeuvre the bus on to a tow truck, which evidently was not an easy task and he went absolutely ballistic in the process. Eventually, with no damage to the bus, we were attached and on our way - me and Nick in the cab with the recovery guy (no seat belts!) and Nina (at an angle) in her bed on the bus. We bombed it down to Sainte-Honorine-des-Pertes, our next destination, a beautiful place on the Normandy coast.  Our driver cheered up along the way and happily dropped us off about 5pm on Tuesday. 

A view of the bus from our drone

There was a small campsite right next door to the garage, so that was our next stopover, hopefully not for too long. The new garage said they would come and see the bus the following day, Wednesday *sigh*, no chance then to get to Bordeaux by Thursday when the work was due to start.  During the next day various mechanics came and went, sliding in an out from under the bus – no one could find a problem.  An old local fellow called Frances, a retired widower, self appointed himself as our chaperone and helped translate between the garage and us – I think we were  a bit of a project for him - and as he had plenty of time on his hands and  in the following days, he became our personal driver and picked us up every day to take us to the supermarket 5km away or show us  the local sights, including an amazing waterfall which runs on to the beach, which attracted pilgrims from the 13^th to 18^th centuries  - I have no idea why this place did not become as famous as Lourdes (I have bottled some of the water to take with us on our forward journey for luck). 

Still smiling, despite delays!

In the end the mechanics asked if they could take the bus out for a drive, to try and diagnose the problem further. So me, Nick and Nina we left sitting on the grass without any of our worldly possessions, until they returned.  When they returned they declared the bus was fine.  Nick popped open the bonnet and suddenly it was as it they saw something for the first time and asked what this box was, which contained a golden liquid… we remembered that when we bought the bus the previous owner told us about an emissions modification made to the bus as it frequently used to travel in and out of London – he said occasionally you had to top it up with an expensive fluid.  We had never really given it a thought, but evidently this liquid is integral to the bus working, and was the culprit for the breakdown.  We recalled a light coming on the dashboard a while back, which we couldn’t identify, and stupidly ignored, we now know it was because this oil was getting low.  It turns out this oil, called Satchen 3, is rarer than hen’s teeth and stupendously expensive (around £200 for 2.5 litres). Anyway, it is a massive relief to know that all we need to do is top up with it, and then we’ll be on our way.  Problem was the garage needed to order it from Germany or somewhere and it wouldn’t arrive until Monday, aaagggghh!

The local scary cows

Never mind – after chatting to the RAC and discovering that they would pay for our accommodation we moved to a snazzy campsite on Thursday, with showers, electricity, a bread and croissant delivery service and situated in a pretty location, near the beach. So we have been holed up here now for a few days.  It is now Tuesday… the elusive, krypton like Satchen 3, has still not arrived – I’m imagining some kind of SWAT team parachuting in with it, and opening a chest that glows with a golden light and then they carefully pour the amber nectar into our bus who rears into life and we merrily go on our way…. I’ll let you know about that….

Bottling some holy water!

Meantime we have enjoyed discovering the area, we are a short walk from Ohama beach, where the Normandy landings took place and you can still enter all the bunkers – we practiced flying our drone there (footage to follow in future posts!). We are also keeping our eyes open for land for sale and had a  tour of a lovely little place which had a ‘A Vendre’ sign outside and we saw the owner mowing the grass, so asked for a look around ( it was a bit above our price limit, but still amazing what you can get in France compared to the UK).

One accomplishment I’m pleased to report, while we have been incapacitated here, is that I managed to do three days of virtual work over the weekend, which made up for the time lost grape-picking and showed me that the high-fluting Wi-Fi system I had installed on the bus works a treat - I was a bit worried I wouldn’t be able to work as efficiently as in the UK, but turns out I can, which is a huge relief  J 

* www.flyingpa.co.uk  if you need any VA services*.

So, that about wraps up the last week and a half – we still haven’t got very far, but we are enjoying ourselves immensely nonetheless. Hopefully my next instalment will be from Bordeaux. 

Watch this space!